Back for Bad
by Kirke
Summary: ListerRimmer preslash. Takes place after 'Only the Good...' What if the events of seasons 7 and 8 were just an illusion created by a reality bubble?


**Title:** Back for Bad

**Pairing: **Rimmer/Lister

**Word Count: **2,377

**Rating: **PG (pre-slash)

**Spoilers:** MAJOR to _Only the Good…, __Stoke Me a Clipper, __Out of Time _and small to other various episodes of the whole series.

**Author's Notes **Written for **fanfic100** as a result of my absolute and total loathing of series VII and the total lack of any interest in series VIII. stabs Ace, kicks Krissie from the cliff and shovels The New Rimmer out of the airlock Set right after OTG.

BACK FOR BAD

Crossing to another dimension is like a ride on a rollercoaster, first few times are exciting, a bit nauseating but nonetheless entertaining, but after the tenth or eleventh time it just… well, it just losses the appeal.

Undoubtedly, the crew of_Red Dwarf_ had been thrown to another timelines, dimensions and universes more times than it required to consider it 'the same ol' boring…', so, as they crossed the portal that Kryten's machine had made for them, it only took them a second to adjust. Lister quickly look around and at the same time noticed three tings; this was another_Red Dwarf_or a ship looking exactly like it, Cat, Kristine and Kryten were all standing next to him, browsing the surroundings with much interest and that…

"Where's Rimmer?" he enquired a bit sharper than he intended to "Shouldn't he be waiting somewhere…"

And then something happened.

Somethingwas actually the best word to describe it. Lister had never experienced anything like that, the whole world simply crashed around them, broke down and vanished, shattered into billions of pieces, as if the mirror they went through had been broken and, in the process, destroyed the world they had been now in. It was a moment not long enough to do anything but enough to have a single thought and, not surprisingly, it was 'Oh no! We gonna die!' when…

…something happened. Like,_ again._

* * *

His eyes were burning, his stomach felt as if someone twisted it few times and then clenched, hard and a whole family of gnomes was hosting a pool party, right inside his skull. Forcing one lid to crack he quickly realized that he was not dead. Well, if he was, then dead required a serious conversation with an interior designer, because this looked exactly like the cockpit of _Starbug_

A low, haunted growl draw his attention to his right and he sighed, relieved, when he noticed that it wasn't a ghost or another cross-dimensional monster but simply Cat, who looked probably as bad as he felt. Which was_really_ bad.

"Hey, man…" He propped himself on the chair he had realized, he was sitting on and threw a glance behind. As he expected, Kryten was sitting on his usual spot, rubbing his temples slowly and muttering something in a low voice and on his left…

Lister took a sharp breath and blinked, trying to figure out was he hallucinating. It was Rimmer, yes, just where he suspected he would be but everything was wrong. Different. Instead of his grey uniform, the older man was wearing the blue one, the very same blue uniform he gained along with his lightbee.

_It's not possible, not possible…_ he chanted to himself when Rimmer rose his head slowly and their eyes met, the large 'H' on the centre of his forehead now clear for him to see. For the few seconds that for him, seemed like an eternity, the two men stared at each other in shock, unable to spoke up or tear the gaze away.

"What's going on, what is it?" Cat's voice cut through this unbearable silence like a knife cut the paper and, thanks to the distraction, Lister blinked, finally breaking the connection. Straighten up in his chair, he glanced at the console before him, trying to make any sense of the readings but he couldn't concentrate even for a second. His head was still pounding and, despite that he was really trying to focus, his thoughts were swirling inside his brain, producing an annoyingly increasing wail of 'it's not him, it's_him_!'

"Kryten" he chocked out finally, tying not to sound too puzzled "I can't make anything out of it. What the hell happened? Where's Krissie?"

The ever-cheerful android didn't answer but the clicking and harrumphing that followed his question indicated, that he had been understood. Cat begun to randomly hit the buttons in front of him, more out of frustration than to receive any respond and Lister realized he could do any of the two following things, he could either continue staring at his console or…

He turned around once again, his dry throat clenching as the small shivers begun running down his spines. He tried to tell himself that it was a madness, that it was just a hallucination or dent in reality, or even another dream, that this could_not_be_his_ Rimmer yet he was_convinced_that it was. He couldn't phantom where this defiant recognition came from, whether that was the way the corner of the other man's mouth twitched, or the small line that appeared between his eyes when he wrinkled his forehead, he had no idea.

Everything the same as the other Rimmer's, yet, so much _different_

"You ok?" he asked the hologram, his voice trembling with feelings he couldn't name or place and when the older man spoke up for the first time, all the doubts, if there were any, had been removed.

It i was_him_.

"I'm fine but I'd really love to know what's going on, chap." The deep, manly voice that echoed around the cockpit draw attention of both Cat and Kryten. Rimmer swayed his head a bit too exaggeratedly, trying to remove the stray hair from his eyes but the fact that he had his ordinary, military haircut, spoiled the effect entirely "Just few minutes ago I've been saving the Prince of Rutting XVI and now?"

Kryten gave a small, triumphant cry, interrupting the small exchange and this time, all the eyes turned to him.

"Yes, now all is clear. It seems like we had hit another reality bubble."

Lister blinked, trying to remember where he heard the name before. It sounded awfully familiar, he was sure he knew it from somewhere but before he could ask Kryten about it, Cat growled, surprised "Reality bubble? Like the ones that protected the space-time-something machine?"

A loud, mental bells begun ringing inside of Lister's head. "Of course!_The_reality bubble!" he exclaimed, when all the pieces made their way into the right places in his mind "It's all another illusion, then?" Without his knowledge or even his participation even, his head turned itself around to face Rimmer once more. The older man didn't notice the movement, too busy gaping at Kryten. Lister was grateful for that, even if he now knew that this was just a hallucination that would disappear as soon as they would found the way out of the bubble, he didn't really need this fake Rimmer to see what he suspected was lurking in his eyes.

Fear.

Desperation.

Need.

He was afraid to lose him again, desperate to remember every detail and every word from this not-real conversation and needed… needed to… just _needed him_ , dammit!

Despite the fact that he loudly and for everyone to hear, yelled that he had never, ever wanted to see the smeghead again… it was now obvious to him that he had been lying. He needed Rimmer, though God only knew what for and this encounter made him realize that with a devastating force.

He was like a boyfriend that you left, telling yourself that you're done and over with him, then you got married, had kids, got your life sorted out and you met him on the street one day, only to understand that you were still desperately in love. Of course, Lister wasn't in love with Rimmer but the mechanism of denial was the same.

What was the most overwhelming about he whole situation, was the fact that now it took Lister just a second to realize all this, while he couldn't do it for months he really spent trying to figure it out. The universe had an ironic sense of humour it seemed but then, it's not like it was a i big /i discovery or anything, Lister got a taste of it one too many times to be bother or surprised.

His ears begun to registering Kryten's words though he ignored them, until the brain cells begun to put them together, forming a coherent sentence that forced him to look at the android in a mild disbelief.

"…be precise, everything that happened after we've encountered the second of the reality bubbles had been just another hallucination."

Dozen of questions surfaced but he wasn't able to open his mouth to voice out any of them. If he heard correctly, then that would mean that Petersen, Red Dwarf, Kochanski… oh God, Kochanski! had never existed, at least not in the form he had become familiar with for the last months, that the assassination of Kennedy, his origins, Kryten's nanobots rebuilding _Red Dwarf_… it never happened.

Hanging his head down, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, while trying to deal with the situation. An illusion. A bloody illusion…

Kristine…

Oblivious of the mental torment his friends was being put through, the feline on his left hissed, something he did often when he didn't understand what was being told „But what about the other Rimmer and Kochanski? What about the _Red Dwarf_?" he enquired.

"They never existed. They were just a projection of the reality bubble" Lister nearly smirked, realizing that he had been thinking the same things barely few seconds earlier. Oh yes, the universe and it sense of irony…

Cat, on the other hand, didn't seem to grasp such an obvious concept. "Could you try to explain it once again but this time slower, buddy?"

Having the amounts of patience many would be envois of , the android just nodded, though Lister couldn't see it and begun to clarify everything for Cat "Like I said, it seemed that we hit a bubble before I put you into stasis and everything that happened after that was just an illusion. It's only a theory but from what I can understand, for our minds, it's been months, while the chronometer's reading indicate that in reality, only three hours has passed. That's why we are feeling so bad, our minds had received a compact load of memories and sensations it normally would take years to gather."

The cockpit became oddly quiet, as Cat slowly processed the information. Lister didn't mean to interrupt him, he was tired, weary even and he wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a week.

It just shouldn't have some to this. Yes, he was glad that he had_his_ Rimmer back but the price they had paid was too large. They had lost, i he /i had lost Red Dwarf, it's crew and Kristine. Real or not, this exchange just wasn't fair to any of them.

The silence had been finally interrupted by Rimmer but the characteristic deep 'Ace like' tone was gone from him voice, replaced by a soft, too familiar, flatness "So, me leaving you, being Ace… it was just an illusion. It never really happened." The conclusion, so evident after all, hit Lister with a full force. He was feeling sorry for himself but what about Rimmer? How terrible it must have been for the hologram to be reduced from the greatest hero in the universe to…_this_ in less than ten minutes? He wanted to say something supportive but he was lost for words. What could he say? 'Hey, you were hero, now you're zero, let's go grab a pint?' Somehow, even for his rather tolerant sense of humour, this joke was flatter than a model's chest.

It seems that he was the only one to notice that, though, as Cat sprung from his chair, finally reaching his own conclusion "That means that our future selves were fake as well! I'm not going to have an arse half the size of a barn! Let's go there, grab the thingy and get out of here!"

Kryten grimaced "Before we move anywhere, I need to check all the systems. Perhaps construct a mechanism that will confirm that we are where we think we are, not where they want us to think we think we are and warn as if we are not in a place we are now thinking we are." Seeing the absolutely perplexed look on the elegant face he looked down at his panel, embarrassed "Well, yeah, we'll do it but we need to prepare first. We don't even know what caused this reality bubble to collapse. It's too dangerous to move now."

"Yeah, whatever, I feel like I didn't sleep in weeks, I'm going to crash." Sending a last look in Lister's direction he marched from the cockpit. Lister was about to curse his absolute lack of any compassion when it occurred to him that Cat couldn't be compassionate because he didn't realize that he needed to be. He didn't know that Rimmer had become Ace, he thought that the hologram had died, killed by that runaway black knight.

Lister sighed mentally, it would take a lot of explaining and he was afraid he would be the one doing it.

The noise on the back brought him up from his daze. Kryten begun to wander around the cockpit, taking various reading, while Rimmer had simply stood up from his chair, nodded curtly at the android and begun to follow Cat. Lister stood up as well. Falling into a stride behind the hologram he tried to come up with something to say to the other man. Sure, i something /i needed to be said, if he only knew what exactly…

Deciding that the simplest words often were more effective than long and complicated speeches, he sped up a bit, walked to Rimmer and, putting a reassuring hand on the other man's shoulder halted and caused him to turn around. "I know it's hard for you" he articulated slowly "but believe me, it's good to have you back, man."

"Yeah, back. Back to square one, you mean" Once again, Lister was lost for words. He wanted to grab Rimmer and hug him, he wanted to punch him, he wanted to… he wanted to do many thing but didn't do a single one of them because the hologram shrugged and smirked. "I'll be fine. I'm always fine." He smiled humourlessly but when his eyes met Lister's, there was a sparkle of the old defiant gitness in them "Guess you've got me back for good or rather back for bad, Listy."

The End.


End file.
